Changing the Subject: An Analysis of Candidates’ Issue Emphasis in Televised Election Debates, 1985-2019

Election debates are key campaign events that allow citizens to compare politicians’ issue positions side-by -side. While debate moderators try to keep candidates on-topic to contrast issue positions, candidates can try to shift the debate to off-topic issues instead. Election debates thus provide a unique setting to study candidates’ issue emphasis. In this context, we study: who veers off-topic, on which issues, and when? Our theory-driven quantitative content analysis of 24 Belgian election debates (1985–2019) shows that different candidates are equally likely to veer off-topic, but when they do, they emphasize their party’s core issues and follow previous off-topic speaking turns.